CDL: (Position announcement) Collections Strategist (Arts and Humanities) @ MIT

From: John P. Abbott <abbottjp_at_appstate.edu>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2014 09:56:13 -0400
To: COLLDV-L_at_usc.edu

Collections Strategist (Arts and Humanities) @ MIT
From: Millicent R Gaskell <mrg_at_MIT.EDU>



COLLECTIONS STRATEGIST (Arts and Humanities)

Collections Strategy and Management

Librarian II/III

The MIT Libraries seeks a Collections Strategist who is an adaptive, 
innovative and process-driven strategic thinker. This position 
contributes to the Collections Strategy and Management (CSM) 
Department’s leadership role in developing a holistic strategy for 
collections within the library, publishing and scholarly communities, 
and will serve as CSM’s lead strategist for the Arts and Humanities 
collections.

The Collections Strategist will participate with department colleagues 
in the development and implementation of the Libraries collections 
policies and strategies. S/he will manage approval plan content; 
participate in prioritizing and spending designated central funds; and 
help with the selection of major interdisciplinary resources and 
packages. The Strategist will gather and organize collections data from 
a variety of tools and sources and coordinate its use in collections 
work, and, through analysis and assessment, use it to guide strategy 
changes. S/he will also provide leadership to selected 
collections-related projects.

The incumbent will join the highly collaborative Arts and Humanities 
Community of Practice (A&H CoP), which serves as a forum for the 10 
member group to discuss topics of mutual interest to selectors’ 
communities. Promoting a strategic and holistic approach to collections 
work, the Strategist will engage with selectors in building collections, 
work with them and provide training to ensure best collections 
practices, and help the CoP think about collections work within the 
broader context of outreach, access, metadata creation, rights 
management and curation. S/he will monitor funds; manage gift/endowed 
fund expenditures according to donors’ intent; and contribute to 
resource development and donor stewardship including identifying and 
articulating collections needs.

The Arts and Humanities at MIT are particularly vibrant and 
interdisciplinary, and play a crucial role in an MIT education. The 
Collection Strategist will have selection responsibilities for general 
subject resources and monographs that serve broad aspects of the A&H 
community’s research needs as well as topics that cross subject areas, 
such as cultural studies, and will support other library services for 
the community. S/he will be engaged with colleagues around significant 
issues in the Arts and Humanities and keep abreast of collection trends 
and publisher changes.


REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS for the position include:

· ALA-MLS/MLIS or equivalent advanced degree in library or information 
science

· Bachelor’s degree in the Arts or Humanities or significant experience 
working with Arts or Humanities collections, including a deep 
understanding of the literature and information sources used in one or 
more disciplines

· Minimum of five years’ collection development experience in an 
academic/research/special library

· Highly developed communication skills, both oral and written, 
including experience producing reports and communicating findings for 
diverse audiences

· Excellent interpersonal skills, including ability to effectively 
collaborate with colleagues

· Evidence of ability or potential to lead change and implement new 
services and work methods

· A collaborative approach to problem solving and working across 
organizational boundaries

· Strong analytical skills

· Ability to be flexible and to successfully manage competing deadlines

· Experience working with vendors of scholarly research products

· Demonstrated project management skills


Preferred

· Advanced degree in the Arts or Humanities
· Demonstrated vendor negotiation skills
· Grant writing experience



SALARY AND BENEFITS: $61,000 minimum. Actual salary and appointment 
level (Librarian II or III) will depend on qualifications and 
experience. MIT offers excellent benefits including a choice of health 
and retirement plans, a dental plan, tuition assistance and a relocation 
allowance. The MIT Libraries afford a flexible and collegial working 
environment and foster professional growth of staff with management 
training and travel funding for professional meetings.

Apply online at: http://hrweb.mit.edu/staffing/. Applications must 
include cover letter, resume, and contact information for three 
references. Review of applications will begin June 23, 2014. MIT is 
strongly and actively committed to diversity within its community and 
particularly encourages applications from qualified women and minority 
candidates.

The MIT Libraries support the Institute's programs of research and study 
with holdings of more than 2.9 million print volumes and 3.1 million 
special format items, and terabytes of MIT-owned digital content. In 
addition, rare special collections, Institute records, historical 
documents, and papers of noted faculty are held in the Institute 
Archives and Special Collections. Library resources and services are 
accessible to students and researchers through the Libraries’ website 
(http://libraries.mit.edu/), and library spaces are widely available for 
both collaborative work and quiet study. Library resources are 
supplemented by innovative services for bioinformatics, GIS, metadata, 
social science and other research data. Through a culture that 
encourages innovation and collaboration, the MIT Libraries are 
redefining the role of the 21st century library – making collections 
more accessible than ever before, and shaping the future of scholarly 
research. Library staff, at all levels, contribute to this spirit of 
innovation and to the mission of promoting learning, discovery and the 
advancement of knowledge at MIT and beyond.

The Libraries maintain memberships and affiliations in ArchivesSpace, 
arXiv, Association of Research Libraries, the BorrowDirect, Boston 
Library Consortium, DDI Alliance, DuraSpace, HathiTrust, CLIR/Digital 
Library Federation, Coalition of Networked Information, Coalition of 
Open Access Policy Institutions, EDUCAUSE, National Digital Stewardship 
Alliance, NISO, North East Research Libraries, OCLC Research Library 
Partnership, and ORCID. The Libraries utilize Ex Libris’ Aleph for its 
integrated library system and have recently deployed EBSCO’s Discovery 
Service. DSpace_at_MIT, a digital repository developed over the past ten 
years by the MIT Libraries, serves to capture, preserve and communicate 
the intellectual output of MIT's faculty and research community. Other 
MIT repositories include: Dome, a second DSpace instance, providing 
access to a sizable image collection and other digital collections owned 
by the MIT Libraries; the MIT Geodata Repository for a diverse 
collection of GIS Data; and MIT’s DataVerse for licensed social science 
datasets.



================================

Robin M. Deadrick
Human Resources Administrator
MIT Libraries
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Room 14S-324
Cambridge MA 02139-4307
617.253.9322
Received on Fri Jun 13 2014 - 03:02:16 EDT